Mr Gaylord and the Halfway Point
by Vaydric
Summary: ONESHOT: Kakashi isn't very good at parties, which is a well known fact. Iruka isn't good at drinking, so when Genma and Raidou throw a party, the two seem to be thrown together. However, love never ran an easy route: "You should go over, Iruka's at that nice halfway point where you're just sloshed enough to say yes, but not so much that it isn't true consent." KakaIru.


**Mr. Gaylord**

Kakashi had never truly taken Iruka into such in-depth consideration (other than when he was dreaming), until he saw him wasted. He never seized any time in his life to reflect on the way Iruka walked anywhere with his shoulder's loose, until he saw him with his arms held out either side of him to balance his intoxicated body. Because when Kakashi says he saw Iruka wasted, he means _wasted. _Iruka was swaying, and sometimes he hiccupped, and sometimes he laughed about nothing while he sat in the corner of Genma and Raidou's flat. It was ten in the evening, and the sky was barely dark, but the room was already humming with the joys only drunks can feel. Raidou was significantly more sober than his partner, who was dancing with Kurenai and Anko in the centre of the circle of couches.

There were three beige sofas, and they were formatted so that each could see the television pinned to the wall next to the door. Iruka sat on the one nearest to the kitchen archway, and every now and again he let out a small giggle while he held onto the arm of the chair like he was spinning. Kakashi watched him stumble to the kitchen some time at half ten, and then Genma bounced on the seat next to him, and propped his feet up on the coffee table.

"Kakashi, how much do I have to pay you to take a shot?"

"I'm sure I'm too expensive," his reply was uninviting of conversation, but he was smiling under his mask. Genma had known him too long to pay mind to his tone, even if he had not grinned to himself. Genma kicked a few small shot glasses and one half-empty tumbler as he crossed his ankles on the table.

"You think you're so great," Genma was slurring, so Kakashi didn't take what he was saying seriously at first. "That's why you won't go and talk to precious Iru-chan."

"You're embarrassing yourself."

Genma moved himself sideways so that he pressed against Kakashi's side, but because Genma was drunk his friend didn't think much of it. The other held a wavering index finger close into Kakashi's face, and began talking mid-belch. "No, you're emb-" his eyebrows furrowed in concentration: "embarrassing _yourself."_

"Genma-"

"No no, listen to me Mr. Nice-mouth,"

Kakashi was stunned into silence. Somewhere across the other side of the room, Anko whispered something to Asuma and Iruka, which led to Iruka giggling again, but Kakashi made a conscious effort to keep him eyes on Genma. Izumo could also be heard chastising his boyfriend, condemning Kotetsu for his "Stupid voyeuristic tendencies!" such putting his hand down Izumo's underwear, from the kitchen.

"You need to… You need to go over there!"

"Is that what you all call me? Mr. Nice-mouth?"

"For like seven years-"

"How could you say that about a teenager?"

"Shut the fuck up or I'll change it to Mr. Gaylord, you were eighteen."

"I can't even believe you sexualised my young body like this, that doesn't even make sense, is it a physical complement or a tribute to my wit?"

Genma was laughing loud enough to draw the attention of Asuma across the room, who was otherwise occupied with searching the DVD rack for something more interesting than _The Notebook _or other such romantic films in abundance in Raidou and Genma's apartment.

"Oh come on, Mr. Gaylord was fucking gold. I have to tell Anko."

"Literally everyone at this party is gay, you can't even discriminate."

It was that moment that an eavesdropping and intoxicated Kurenai made herself known: "I was only gay for like a week for a mission and I'm not going into that while Anko is near me." She patted Genma on the shoulder and leaned over the back of the chair so that she could take what seemed to be an abandoned glass from the coffee table, and then she knocked back the amber liquid inside with one swing. She pulled a face. "That's some nasty shit, is this American?"

"So racist Kurenai," Kakashi smiled at her, "You were supposed to be the nicest one here,"

"Nicest lookin' one," Asuma garbled as he approached the coffee table and stood expectantly at it, his expression making Genma move over even more as so to force Kakashi to do the same. Four of them squeezed onto the sofa together, and Kakashi felt Genma's hand on his knee and Kurenai's on his shoulder. Three of the four of them were clearly too drunk to keep their hands to themselves.

"You know," Kurenai said, "You should go over, Iruka's at that nice halfway point where you're just sloshed enough to say yes, but not so much that it isn't true consent."

"It's true," Genma agreed, "At least get a kiss, a little-" he hiccupped, "Smooch, doesn't even have to be tongue."

Kakashi didn't justify the crowd with a response, and he was further making effort to maintain his staring contest with the hole in Genma's sock.

"Ah, Kakashi, make me ten bucks and go ask Iruka out," Asuma said, and he reached over his wife to grab at Kakashi's knee, which was an uncomfortable experience for everyone on the sofa as they were pushed against one another. There was a group grunt when Asuma returned to his seated position.

"Only ten?" Genma asked, "Why am I not in on this?"

"I have a bet with Anko, he has to do it before Christmas,"

"It's the middle of March?"

"It wasn't a teetotal bet y'know," Kurenai laughed at the memory of the night in question, "and we needed time to organise a party."

"What makes you think I wouldn't do it sober?" Kakashi asked, and when he looked up from his gaze on Genma's foot he looked into the disbelieving stare of red eyes.

"Is he serious? Genma, how many years has it been?"

"Might have been before Mr. Nice-mouth, you know."

* * *

Iruka was in the bathroom when Kakashi went into the kitchen, and there he found a small bowl of cheese puffs and a bottle of sake, and he happily sat at the dining table with the two items and sipped at the little shot glass he found in the cupboard until he started to feel the buzz of alcohol in his blood. He enjoyed the thrumming of it under his skin and reclined back in the chair as he popped the small cheesy treats into his mouth.

"God bless America, right?" Anko said as she stumbled into the kitchen, took Kakashi's sake from the table, and sat next to him. She didn't pour it into a glass, but rather took it from the bottle. "Cheese puffs and whiskey. The promise land."

"Try telling that to Kurenai,"

"Her opinion is irrelevant, she married a man with a beard."

Kakashi nodded. "Sound reasoning."

Anko reached into the bowl that Kakashi held to his chest, and he sat up straight when she looked like she was going to speak. She opened her mouth, and a word began forming, but instead she put a handful of puffs in and chewed with her mouth open. Kakashi was loosened by the sake, and so laughed openly at her.

"And you're getting more than me, eating like that."

"Which is only down to yourself," She said, but she was still chewing, and so it was more a spray then a sentence. Before Kakashi could defend himself, Anko's face began to contort and her lips spread far to the side of her face and ironically cute dimples formed next to a smug grin: "Mr. Gaylord."

* * *

It was one in the morning, and half a bottle of Russian vodka later, that Kakashi found himself sat in the corridor with Kotetsu, his headband loosely around his neck and both of his eyes visible. He looked down the corridor to where the other guests were still dancing, and then to the bathroom where Raidou and Genma were undoubtedly giving each other head. His money was on Raidou bottoming that night. Kakashi absently thought about his friends having sex, and was rudely interrupted by his companion.

"We knew about Iruka way before you told us,"

His eyebrows furrowed, and he noted that Kotetsu didn't sound as plastered as any of the other people he had spoken to that night. "I never told you." He said, and he watched with mild amusement as Kotetsu's hair got in his eyes as soon as he pushed it out of the way.

"I swear you did?"

Kakashi shook his head slowly, because of his slightly spinning vision. Kotetsu's tone was muddled:

"Did you stop denying it?"

"I guess you could say I embraced your accusations."

"Same thing then," then he muttered under his breath, "pretentious asshole."

From the end of the corridor that the music was diffusing from, a lone figure seemed to claw his way from the speakers. Iruka stood, sweaty and having rolled up his sleeves, tall above Kakashi. He faltered slightly as he reached for the bathroom door, and obviously rethought his original plan before he had to witness what was undoubtedly happening in the room in front of him. Kotetsu looked at Kakashi and made an obvious gesture with a single eyebrow.

"Iruka-sensei, come and sit here with us,"

Iruka span around and smiled, in a lopsided and innocent way, at the two men on the floor. His cheeks were flushed and his hair was sticking to his head, and he seemed to notice the pair's eyes on his hairstyle because he quickly took it down, and let the matted mess pool over his shoulders. "Is this the line for the toilet?"

"Why? Gotta' pee?"

Kakashi pulled a somewhat surprised face at Kotetsu's statement.

"Yeah, why can't they use the bedroom? It's their house." Iruka went to sit down next to Kotetsu, who in no subtle way directed Iruka to sit down between himself and Kakashi by shuffling to his left and creating a questionably small gap between the seated men. Kakashi realised that there was no question about how small the gap was, when Iruka was pressed to his side.

No sooner did Iruka make himself comfortable than did Kotetsu announce that he was going to piss in the sink, and stood and walked away.

Perhaps Kakashi was too alert of a person to ignore the silence, or Iruka was too drunk of a person to acknowledge it; but there was a thick tension, and no amount of sophisticated decision-making could help the jounin think of something to fill the void in the conversation. He still had Iruka against his side, and he thought that it was to avoid the awkwardness of Iruka having to move away, or because his sleeve was like a towel, soaking the sweat on Iruka's bicep. He cringed.

"Did you know," Iruka said, and he help his finger up in a way that made Kakashi think that Iruka had spent too much time with Genma that night, "That Kurenai was a lesbian for a week,"

Kakashi was smiling like an idiot under his mask. "Did you tell Anko that?"

"No, she told me."

"Oh. Wow." Kakashi was worried what would happen to him when Anko inevitably remembered the next morning and perused Kurenai for details, but he brushed it off when Iruka spoke again.

"I know I'm way too wasted to say this," Kakashi's heart rate sped up the smallest fraction. "But, do you, Kakashi, in fact know-" Kakashi could tell Iruka was struggling to form words now. "How to fill out a form?"

He acknowledged that Iruka was almost definitely passed the halfway point Kurenai had mentioned earlier.

"A form?"

"A mission report, to be more pre-" Iruka let his hand drop as he took a deep breath, as though talking was a strain on his respiration, and it just so happened that his hand fell into Kakashi's lap, right on the top of his thigh, almost in the dip of his pelvis. "-_cise_."

He was at a loss for words, for once in his life, and he became almost frantic as he looked around the corridor for help, from perhaps Jesus or Buddha or Genma, or anybody. He heard a sharp moan from the bathroom, and a heavy bass drop from the lounge, but not a single word from a religious figure to guide him in his time of need.

"Are you asking me if I can spell?"

_Smooth as a brick, _Kakashi thought. He then frowned; _is that how it even goes? _

"No, no I like- I mean can you in fact fill out a mission report without shitting on it first, or whatever you do to it."

"_Shitting on it_? Iruka, you work with children,"

"Not on weekends I don't, I'm a free man. _All weekend_ in fact. And evenings, like Tuesday when it's two for one at Ichiraku."

Kakashi didn't sense the hint. "You're so wasted."

"You're so hot."

Kakashi's eyebrow's shot to the top of his head in a microsecond, and he could do nothing more than look straight ahead the cream coloured wall of his friends' apartment. Iruka's hand was removed from his lap, only to be gripped onto his arm. The hold had a force to it that made him turn to look at Iruka, and then has found that they were in such close proximity that his eyes were immediately drawn to the little pink lips pouting near his shoulder, and then back to burning brown eyes flecked with small dots of gold and tinged with liquor. He looked back to the lips when they spoke, mesmerised by the movements of Iruka's tongue.

"Kiss me."

"I thought we were talking about forms?" His response was automatic, and so humiliating he could have ostracised his own liver.

"This is the only chance you'll get."

"But you're passed the halfway point."

"Why are you resisting, you wrote your number on my desk."

"That was Asuma because he wants ten dollars, it's a complex history that I'm not delving into."

"But he did it because you like me, I know a jounin's brain, you're like monkeys or dolphins."

"They are two very different creatures." Then he lifted his eyebrow, his gaze still on Iruka's mouth. "Aren't you a dolphin?"

"Please just kiss me,"

"Why can't we just do dinner instead of making out while our friends have sex a wall away from us?"

"We can do dinner too, and get the best of both worlds. Like maybe a Tuesday, when I'm totally free at any time especially six."

Kakashi admitted that he couldn't argue with that rationalising, especially not with Iruka pulling his sleeve like that. He sucked in a breath, because he was getting light headed with all of the excitement, and he thinks he might have to call timeout to go and get some sugar in his blood.

"But seriously," Iruka says, and he moves close so that he can peck at Kakashi's chin, and the jounin isn't sure he was meant to miss his lips. "You spell your name wrong in all the reports,"

Kakashi pulls back, "What?"

"It's G-A-Y-L-O-R-D," Iruka spells, smiling, "Not H-A-T-A-K-E."

* * *

I think I'm so funny I'm sorry but gaylord is such a 2007 insult i couldnt help myself


End file.
